A method and an apparatus of the aforementioned type are described in WO 87/07543 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,809,763, to which express reference is made, particularly with respect to the production of the mould/core parts. The known apparatus has conventional core moulding machines, whose number corresponds to the mould or core parts desired for a mould or a core. A displacing device is also provided enabling the mould parts produced in one of the partial boxes thereof to be displaced to a joining station, in which they are joined together to form the desired overall mould. Subsequently the partial boxes are returned to their moulding machine, so that the production of a corresponding mould part can take place therein.
It is disadvantageous that complicated and expensive moulding machines must be present in the same numbers as the mould parts necessary for producing the overall mould. The moulding machines are subject to considerable stoppage or delay times due to the time up to the mould part produced by them being ready for assembly in the joining station and during the joining or assembly of the mould part produced by the same. In addition, considerably manufacturing time is required for an overall mould due to the considerable displacement paths required and which necessarily rise overproportionally when there are several parts to be joined together to form a mould. In addition, the considerable number of linear displacements for the partial boxes and their mould parts are kinematically unfavorable.